Contributed by timorous_me. Posted by aubin on Friday, June 1, 2012 at 12:30 PM (EDT)

Punks in Vegas have posted a new recording from Laura Jane Grace's recent performance at Punk Rock Bowling in Las Vegas last weekend. The clip is of "Walking Is Still Honest" but she also performed a number of Against Me! favorites solo including "Black me Out," "Transgender Dysphoria Blues," "Reinventing Axl Rose," "Baby I'm an Anarchist," "Sink Florida Sink," "Pints of Guinness Make You Strong," "Those Anarcho Punks Are Mysterious," and "We Did it All for Don" and "Walking Is Still Honest." The footage is solo, but decidedly better than the Against Me! performance last week which marked Laura's formal debut.

I usually don't ever miss a DTM show, but they played Seattle a few weeks back and totally bombed, all the while Chicken was shit talking Seattle and bragging about how he just got out of rehab for the fourth time. I'll probably buy another ticket next time though.
The new guy killed it, although it's stupid as fuck that they have him singing "Little Brother".
'

To be fair, Seattle's punk scene is a real crapshoot for a lot of bands that come by, either people are having fun and dancing and being all crazy and shit, or they're having fun standing still and staring blankly, clap when there's silence.

I do remember the vibe being kinda weird at that show, but I just chalked it up to being a Thursday night. I know my friends and I didn't go too nuts because we all had to work the next day. I don't remember any shit-talking about Seattle, but I do recall a lot of rehab talk.

i wonder if against me would have gotten this popular if it was a girl fronting the band all along? my guess is nope because girl bands generally never do as well around here ("here" being the punk scene, i guess). i'm glad larry livermore included so many in the new comp, even though that dopamines song blows everything else away

Correlation, not causation. Fewer girl-fronted bands are successful because fewer girls play in bands, and when they do they're all-too-often based around a stupid gimmick and they suck. People "around here" love Discount, Sleater-Kinney and Bikini Kill.

I agree with this. Look at the lack of love X-Spex or Tilt or whoever else gets. Bands that should have done as well as some of their peers but didn't. I don't think it's overt sexism. But female artists almost always have to work a lot harder for the same end result.

The bowling was at Sam's Town and Gold Coast on Saturday. The bowling Sunday was at Sam's only. The shows were downtown near the 7-11 with the car wash sort of by the Gold Spike and the freeway entrance. The late night club shows were at Azul Tequila, Bunkhouse, Beauty Bar and Country Saloon. Pool parties with La Plebe, Real McKenzies, Old Man Markley and DJ Gonzo were at Gold Spike and Golden Nugget. The Laura Jane Grace/Matt Skiba show as in the backyard of the Beauty Bar and it was AWESOME! I caught the end of Dead to Me, 45 minutes of Good Riddance and then off to the Skiba show that boasted "special guests".....a real good time.

something chilling/awesome about the crowd doing the harmonies (woahs) when it's just Laura on stage. i know it happens with the band, but it's different where James isn't there to bring his booming voice in there.

My feeling is that she would prefer to be referred to as a 'she'. Therefore, I'll do it. I keep picturing myself in front of her and saying 'Well you're not a girl yet, so I'm still going to call you a guy! Even though all you'd like is to be referred to as a woman'. Tough nuts!

I definitely concur and support Laura throughout her change. I wasn't trying to sound like a bigoted homophobe or anything. It was more or less me not looking at the bigger picture and looking at the anatomy aspect of it.

"He" / "She" have nothing to do with anatomical composition. "Male" and "Female" are descriptors for sex, but both "he" and "she" relate to gender, which is a social construct, thus what Jane refers to herself as is what she is. Now stop being a contrarian dick and making someone else's life more difficult than it needs to be.

i don't think it's that simple and i understand why people get confused. I'm 100% supportive of whatever Laura wants to do, that doesn't mean I'm always going to know the politically correct way to speak about it.

this whole thing is relatively new, especially to "mainstream" (IE Rolling Stone reported it, band used to be on MTV) culture, so there's bound to be a learning curve.

This whole thing is relatively new to human society in general. Notice that very few languages have personal pronouns that do not denote gender, very few myths involve changing sex, etc. I'm totally supportive of anybody doing whatever they want as long as it doesn't hurt others, but you just can't claim that gender reassignment is part of any sort of "natural" process. Being able to live in a gender that contradicts your sex is a modern luxury, pure and simple.

Wait, what? Nature is exquisitely ordered and complex, but it's also anarchic. Emergence is part of how the Universe works. No "pre-destination" or intelligent creation or guidance are necessary. One of the main reasons I'm an atheist is precisely because things work so well without any hint of divine intervention. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence

I know I'm late to the party but that isn't true. A number of languages have neuter pronouns, most modern languages lack them, but historically had them. Not to mention there are cases of both women who take on male roles and are treated entirely as males by society, despite their sex, and men taking on the roles of women. The examples I know of are traditional, but mostly within Asia. I'd be interested if anyone knew of other examples.

I mean I agree it is a modern miracle to be able to transition to the sex your gender matches. But its not quite as ahistorical as it seems.

I don't understand why this is such a sticking point for some people. Does it really make you that uncomfortable to use feminine pronouns when referring to her simply because she has a penis? She's dealt with gender dysphoria for years, perhaps her whole life, so you're really disrespecting her more by being stubborn and continuing to use masculine pronouns.

While it's certainly not a "rare song", they don't play it at every show.
They didn't play it last night. Nor last February in Chicago. Though I didn't go to any AM! shows between 2008 and 2010, the last time I remember seeing them play it live was in 2004, though I have seen it on other city setlists.
The point of my rambling is, it's not a show staple, but it's also not rare that they'd play it.